Young pretenders start the race to succeed BP's Lord Browne

BP yesterday fired the starting gun on the race to succeed Lord Browne of Madingley as chief executive by appointing three young pretenders to the board.

The oil giant also announced the retirement of Rodney Chase, its long-standing deputy chief executive and the man credited with helping transform BP into Britain's biggest company.

The three new board directors are John Manzoni, 43, Tony Hayward, 45 and David Allen, 48. They will join the board as managing directors at the beginning of next month.

BP insiders said that of the three, Mr Manzoni and Mr Hayward were regarded as genuine contenders to become BP's next chief executive. However, they may have to wait some time for the top job since Lord Browne is still only 54 and has five and a half years to go before he reaches the company's retirement age of 60.

Mr Manzoni, an engineering graduate from Imperial College, joined BP in 1983 and has risen to become chief executive of its refining and marketing division. One of his early jobs was as executive assistant to the then John Browne.

Mr Hayward, a geology graduate from Edinburgh University, has been with BP for 20 years and is succeeding Dick Olver as chief executive of exploration and production. Mr Olver, 56, in turn succeeds Mr Chase as deputy chief executive.